Boxing analyst Tony Bellew predicts a quick knockout victory for Anthony Joshua against Daniel Dubois if the two fight on September 21st.
It’s still too early to know if Joshua will face Dubois next because his promoter, Eddie Hearn, says the full IBF title must be available before he makes that fight.
Bellew says IBF interim heavyweight champion Dubois’ defense is too pourous for him to take the right-hand power shots from Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) without quickly folding immediately.
Joshua’s Recent Knockout Power
“If he fights AJ next, it ends quickly and brutally,” said Tony Bellew to iFL TV, predicting a fast knockout win for Anthony Joshua if he faces IBF interim heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois next in September.
“Purely based on the fact that, let’s just put two and two together here. He took 56 clean right hands in the first four rounds,” said Bellew about Dubois in his fight against Filip Hrgovic on June 1st in Riyadh.
It appears that Bellew’s high perception of the soon-to-be 35-year-old Joshua’s knockout ability is based on his fast second-round knockout of 0-1 boxing novice Francis Ngannou last March in Riyadh.
Joshua hadn’t knocked anybody else out that quickly since earlier in his career when he KO’d Charles Martin in 2016 and Gary Cornish in 2015.
Those two fighters were both limited guys who were nowhere near the level of Dubois, and Joshua was a lot younger than he is now. AJ is older than Adrien Broner. Let that sink in for a second.
Bellew Acknowledges Dubois’ Resilience
“You’ll get away with one or two against AJ, and then you know what happens? Then you got to sleep,” said Bellew. “I take nothing away from him. Amazing resilience and a huge amount of courage against Filip Hrgovic, but it’s one thing Filip Hrgovic hitting you and another thing a wrecking Machine like Anthony Joshua hitting you,” said Bellew.
Joshua is not young, and Hearn panicked after he lost two consecutive fights to Oleksandr Usyk. After the second loss to Usyk, Hearn began feeding against lesser opposition, which he’s done in his last four consecutive tights.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Daniel Dubois in any way, shape, or form because he’s done amazing. He proved me wrong. I thought Filip Hrgovic would wear him out, beat him up, and stop him. He let Filip Hrgovic punch himself out,” said Bellew.
If Bellew had watched Hrgovic’s fights against Dempsey McKean and Zhilei Zhang, he would have seen that he was not that good of a fighter.
He’d have understood that there was an excellent chance that Hrgovic would crumble against Dubois once he started taking shots, because he clearly lost to Zhang and he was hurt by McKean.
“He basically done the rope-a-dope that Muhammad Ali done [against George Foreman on October 30, 1974], but took every single punch. He [Dubois] let someone hit him so many times he [Hrgovic] got tired, and that’s what he done. Amazing resilience, Daniel Dubois. I tipped my hat to you; well done,” said Bellew.
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